But you proved GP's point yourself, didn't you? A brain (neural net, probabilistic Markov chain transmogrifier/compressor, or any other term you prefer) used to process and compress "stupid" Markov chains doesn't qualify as a provably stupid entity no more. Ergo, philosophers are still asking wrong questions!

In the second paragraph:
s/ some of the/n/g
Sorry...

Pragmatically speaking, even under arguably unjust government someone needs to take care of the public law and order. Wouldn't you prefer those people taking care of the safety of the streets to be of high moral stance and have some integrity, even if the state power itself is unjust? And no matter what some rosy-eyed idealists think, living under over-controlling government beats living in anarchy any day.

I will not even go into the whole topic of Russia some of the oppressive government policies may be mirroring the sentiments of the population at large, many of whom are nostalgic for Soviet past.

Anyway, these are real people living there, with real needs, and this cop addresses the issues that normal, middle class people care about and therefore deserves massive respect and kudos, both for speaking up, as well as jeopardizing his safety and career for doing so.

Are you in your right mind? The guy works in the narcotics squad, how the hell is that "conducting laws made by and oppressive government"? It's not like he is running around arresting journalists and dissidents!

What you say is SOOO true. People who live and breathe new technology are the ones who develop new technology (scientists and hi-tech R&D crowd). Everybody else focuses on toys and/or status symbols.

Imagine living in a country with competitive telecom market where most GSM/3G providers don't have network traffic cap and flat-rate data plans cost peanuts! (hint: these places actually exist, and I live in one of them)

Sorry, but you are an idiot. The fact that we need more sustainable sources of fuels doesn't mean we should stop all research that is not "practical" here and now.

In fact, science is cheap, comparing to the lumps of money we waste on:

• Wars
• Unhealthy habits
• Retarded causes like creationism
• etc

What are you saying? Discovering a "mere" fungus on another celestial body would be outright revolutionary, of course provided that the fungus hasn't been brought by the investigating probe from Earth. In fact, finding an extraterrestrial bacteria or plant (or their analogues) would probably be one of the most important discoveries humanity has _ever_ made! Not to mention that it would be exciting to see what sort of biochemistry it would have, its reproductive mechanisms, etc. The jump from no-life to life is conceptually much larger than the gap between various lifeforms.

Once we get implants and augmented intelligence to play around with, the average Joe will easily outsmart Plato & Co, not to mention the potential DNA modifications that will likely be used to produce "faster" brains, with better analytical capabilities, thus making people "wiser" overall.

If aliens have had millions of years to perfect themselves, it's not hard to imagine them leaving their early forms behind, and having merged with space itself.

Humanity is still very young, and 8000+ years of semi-known history is but an instant.

I am sorry, but how is their technological disadvantage temporary? So far no totalitarian system has managed to gain a long term advantage over the "free world". Some exmples:

• Nazis slaughtered and exhiled a lion's share of their scientists, thus limiting their own growth potential
• Soviets never reached even the 90% of the total technical capability of the West, and even that made their empire go bankrupt during 1980s

In order for the countries of the Middle East to reach the Western levels of technology they would need to offer Western levels of education. Good education would encourage progressively larger degree of independent thought, subversive to the very values the current incarnation of fundamentalists hold so dear. I am talking especially about sciences such as physics and biology, which happen to have direct military applicability.

To make the long story short, in order for the Muslim world to overtake the West, they will have to liberalize, and once they liberalize they are unlikely to see our culture as abhorrent.